A railgun, alternatively spelled rail gun, is a type of electromagnetic projectile weapon. While often confused with Magnetic Accelerator Cannons, rather than accelerating their projectiles through the use of magnetic coils, railguns, as their name suggests, utilize magnetic rails to perform this task. More precisely, a railgun accelerates a conductive projectile along a pair of metal rails, using two sliding or rolling contacts that permit a large electric current to pass through the projectile. This current interacts with the strong magnetic fields generated by the rails and this accelerates the projectile.
Humanity's first tests with railguns took place in the early 21st century. While coilguns are more common in use during the 26th century in form of MACs and many smaller weapon systems, the UNSC is known to utilize railgun technology to some degree. Known railgun-based weapons employed by the UNSC include the LRG Rail Guns mounted on SP42 Cobra combat vehicles and the handheld ARC-920 railgun carbine.[1]
Known railguns
LRG Rail Gun
- Main article: LRG Rail Gun
The LRG Rail Gun serves as both the primary and secondary armament of the SP42 Cobra anti-vehicle/anti-fortification system, and is also used as an anti-vehicle weapon on automated defense turrets. The 16 megajoule model of the weapon it used as a potent anti-vehicle weapon, while the 8 megajoule version is used to demolish structures.[2]
Asymmetric Recoilless Carbine-920
- Main article: ARC-920
The ARC-920 is a man-portable weapon system that uses rail accelerator technology to deliver a high-explosive projectile at an incredible speed.[1]
Trivia
In a piece of Halo 3 concept art by Isaac Hannaford, the point defense guns on UNSC frigates are identified as "rail gun turrets". It is unknown if this is how the weapons canonically operate or simply the artist's interpretation.[3]
Gallery
- UNSC Cobra 02.jpg
The LRG Rail Gun mounted on the UNSC Cobra.
The ARC-920.
